nostalgia will be my death
an analysis and personal reflections on nostalgia
Nostalgia is a form of death.
Every memory we revisit belongs to a world that no longer exists, preserved only in fragments of feeling, images, and sound.
Lately, I’ve been consumed by nostalgia—more specifically, by the emotions it brings.
These emotions can reshape how we perceive both the past and the present, often making what is gone feel more desirable than what remains.
This leads me to ask: why do we keep returning to what can no longer return to us?
In order to better understand nostalgia, I took the liberty of researching the emotion.
The term nostalgia was first coined in the 17th century by Swiss physician Johannes Hofer. The word itself is a compound of the Greek words nostos (“return”) and algos (“pain”) (Sedikides et al. 304).
One interpretation of nostalgia is that it emerges from the tension between the past and present—specifically, the irretrievability of the past. This can take two forms: the belief that the past was preferable to the present, or the realization that there is now a separation of knowledge between the past and the present (Howard 641–42).
What surprised me most was learning that nostalgia was once considered a medical disease and, by the beginning of the 20th century, even a psychiatric disorder. Symptoms associated with nostalgia included insomnia, anxiety, and depression. Over time, however, nostalgia became less associated with a form of depression and more connected to a subconscious desire to return to a particular moment in life.
Nostalgia was understood as something broader and more universal—an emotion capable of affecting anyone, regardless of age, culture, or social background. Longing could exist for a person, a place, an event, or even a version of oneself (Sedikides et al. 304-05).
Knowing the history of nostalgia leads me to think deeply about the intensity of human emotion and powerful effects memories can hold over us. Nostalgia visits us every day without fully catapulting us into madness. Yet it was once regarded as a medical disease. Perhaps, that means if we sit with it long enough, nostalgia has the power to consume us.
Nostalgia is an all-encompassing emotion.
Within it, one can find grief, melancholy, and longing, while also finding gratitude, appreciation, and love.
I mention grief because I believe that, in order to feel nostalgia, there must first be some kind of death—whether of a place, a person, or a stage of life.
Because of this, nostalgia can carry sadness while still allowing us to cherish what once was.
As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I have been experiencing waves of nostalgia lately—maybe more than at any other point in my life.
A year and a half ago, I moved away from the place where I had lived since childhood and spent my early twenties. It was a major life change. Because of that, it makes sense why my mind keeps returning to memories of childhood, old friends, family members, and the places that once felt permanent.
Nostalgia hits me in unexpected ways. I drink coffee and remember all the cafés I used to visit with my best friends, feeling as if we had all the time in the world. I see the warm glow of my nightstand lamp and I am taken back to when I shared a room with my sister, talking endlessly long past our bedtime. I smell soap and think of the mornings in Mexico City, when people would clean the streets at early hours.
In some way, I think nostalgia is my mind’s attempt to comfort me through a changing environment while also helping me process the ending of a chapter in my life and reconnecting me to earlier versions of myself—especially the parts rooted in childhood that feel increasingly distant.
I wonder if I will always feel this nostalgic. And that thought scares me. If I am already this nostalgic at 25, what will I do when I’m 70?
The plunge into madness driven by longing for the past is nothing new. In fact, nostalgia has long been explored in literature as both a tender and dangerous force. One of the most critically acclaimed American classics, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is essentially an ode to nostalgia.
For those unfamiliar with the story, it follows the mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby and his obsessive pursuit of his lost love, Daisy Buchanan. Gatsby devotes himself to recreating a version of the past in which they are reunited, shaping his entire life around the hope of restoring what once was. In doing so, he attempts to turn memory into reality. Ultimately, his refusal to accept the passage of time leads to his downfall.
‘I wouldn’t ask too much of her,’ I ventured. ‘You can’t repeat the past.’
‘Can’t repeat the past?’ he cried incredulously. ‘Why of course you can!’
He looked around him wildly, as if the past were lurking here in the shadow of his house, just out of reach of his hand.
‘I'm going to fix everything just the way it was before," he said, nodding determinedly. ‘She’ll see.’
-conversation between Nick Carraway and Jay Gatsby
Gatsby’s attempt to relive the past drives the narrative and captures the bittersweet yet ultimately destructive nature of looking backward. His efforts to bring the past into his present cast a shadow over his current life—one in which the present is always measured against an idealized version of what once was.
This fixation contributes to his downward spiral into disillusionment and despair. The act of comparing the present to the past often leads to the belief that what has already passed was inherently better.
This is where nostalgia becomes dangerous: it rarely presents the full picture of what once was.
I think it’s healthy to think about the past and be nostalgic for what we have lived. It’s human nature to want to return to moments that once felt comforting. However, it’s important to recognize that time can also distort memories.
The longer we separate ourselves from a moment in the past, the more likely we are to remember only its best parts, rather than the full emotional reality of what we were experiencing—both the good and the bad.
In this way, longing for the past can become dangerous, as it invites constant comparison between what was and what is.
I wonder if nostalgia comes from the comfort of hindsight—from knowing that the versions of ourselves that once felt uncertain ultimately turned out fine.
Where I am now, there are endless possibilities for the future, yet I have no idea how any of it will unfold. While I know that uncertainty is part of the beauty of life, it can also be frightening and leave me vulnerable to anxious thoughts.
The weight of uncertainty can make it hard to fully appreciate the present.
I believe this is one reason why many people experience nostalgia more intensely today. With the world consisting of uncertainty and instability, the past can begin to feel like a safer place to return to.
And yet, it is important to remember that every period of life contains its own ups and downs. It’s easy to long for the past with the benefit of knowing how it ends. That hindsight allows us to focus only on what we loved, while forgetting what we struggled through.
Still, I think nostalgia is ultimately beneficial. For me, it is a reminder that I have lived a life worth missing.
It encourages me to cherish the present and to make the most of it—even with its uncertainties.
It is also a quiet and somewhat painful reminder that one day, I will feel nostalgia for this very moment. I know what brings me joy now, but I will not fully understand what it means to miss it until it has already passed.
We will never get our past back, no matter how much we try to relive it or recreate it. In that sense, it is like death.
In a way, I think nostalgia will be my form of death—not in a literal sense, but as the realization that every moment I love will eventually become something I can only revisit in memory.
That is what makes nostalgia a beautiful form of pain. It rips our heart out from the inside by reminding us of the most treasured memories.
Nostalgia is proof that we have truly lived.
sources:
Howard, Scott Alexander. “Nostalgia.” Analysis, vol. 72, no. 4, 2012, pp. 641–50. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/23359115.
Sedikides, Constantine, et al. “Nostalgia: Past, Present, and Future.” Current Directions in Psychological Science, vol. 17, no. 5, 2008, pp. 304–07. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20183308.
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. Scribner, 1925.
Great gatsby mentioned rahhh 🦅🦅🦅🦅